Issue 29 • February 2016 Does ISIS really differ from other terrorist groups; if so, how does its singularity complicate US efforts to defeat it? IN THIS ISSUE Mark Moyar • Pete R. Mansoor Raymond Ibrahim Contents Editorial Board February 2016 · Issue 29 Victor Davis Hanson, Chair Bruce Thornton David Berkey Background Essay Contributing Members Typologies of Terrorism Peter Berkowitz by Mark Moyar Max Boot Josiah Bunting III Angelo M. Codevilla Featured Commentary Thomas Donnelly Why ISIS Is Different—and Why It Matters Colonel Joseph Felter by Peter R. Mansoor Josef Joffe ISIS: The Latest Phase of the Jihad Frederick W. Kagan by Raymond Ibrahim Kimberly Kagan Edward N. Luttwak Peter R. Mansoor Educational Materials Walter Russell Mead Discussion Questions Mark Moyar Williamson Murray Ralph Peters Suggestions for Further Reading Andrew Roberts Admiral Gary Roughead Kori Schake Kiron K. Skinner Barry Strauss Gil-li Vardi Bing West Miles Maochun Yu Amy Zegart ABOUT THE POSTERS IN THIS ISSUE Documenting the wartime viewpoints and diverse political sentiments of the twentieth century, the Hoover Institution Library & Archives Poster Collection has more than one hundred thousand posters from around the world and continues to grow. Thirty-three thousand are available online. Posters from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia/Soviet Union, and France predominate, though posters from more than eighty countries are included. Background Essay Issue 29 | February 2016 1 Typologies of Terrorism Mark Moyar The term “terrorism” is commonly understood as political violence outside the norms of conflicts between states. Terrorism’s victims can be innocent villains, or they can be political officials or even soldiers. More controversial is the term “terrorist.” Individuals who commit acts of terrorism are often said to be “terrorists,” but that definition can be disputed on the grounds that terrorism is usually a tactic rather than a defining feature of an organization, and hence it makes no more sense to refer to a political movement that employs terrorism as “terrorists” than it does to refer to a country that employs conven- tional warfare as a “conventional war state.” The term “terrorist” best fits organizations for which terrorism is the principal or sole activity. Examples would include the Bader-Meinhof Brigade and the Weather Under- ground. Such organizations usually have political motives, but their exclusive reliance on terrorism is usually too limited in its impact to cause serious harm to their enemies or to attract large numbers of supporters. Non-state organizations that use terrorism as one of several military and political instruments are most often termed “insurgents.” The most famous exposition of the broad spectrum of violence employed by insurgents came from Mao Zedong, based upon his own experiences in waging insurgency in China. Mao delineated three categories of insurgent violence: terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and conventional warfare. Terrorism typically targets a smaller number of victims than guerrilla warfare, and is more likely to target civilians. The line between the two is sometimes blurred; the bombing of a police station by a paramilitary group might be said to be terrorism or guerrilla warfare or a combination thereof. According to Mao’s theory, insurgents rely heavily on terrorism when they are at their weakest. Because terrorist strikes are small and covert, they do not expose the insur- gents to large-scale retaliation. When the insurgents become stronger, they can turn to guerrilla warfare, which can inflict more damage, while its concentration of lightly armed fighters increases their exposure to governmental countermeasures. Guerrilla warfare on its own rarely suffices to overthrow a government. Insurgents who seek to overthrow a government typically aspire to conventional warfare, for it is usually required to defeat the government’s conventional military forces. It is also most vulnerable to the govern- ment’s countermeasures, for conventional forces must mass, which makes them easier to 2 Issue 29 | February 2016 Strategika detect, and they cannot melt into the population as easily as guerrillas. ISIS has made use of all three types of violence as described by Mao, its biggest victories as well as biggest defeats taking place in the realm of conventional warfare. Some insurgent organizations have relied on a small group of dedicated adherents to attain their objectives. Others have attempted to mobilize large segments of the popula- tion. Those that succeed in mobilizing the population are generally the most effective of insurgents, since they can bring more political and military strength to bear and can more easily intermingle with the civilian population. ISIS can be characterized as both terrorists and insurgents. Their record of brutal ter- rorist attacks has few rivals in terms of both the number of victims and the gruesome nature of the attacks. ISIS is also an insurgent group, waging wars of insurgency in both Syria and Iraq. It has mobilized significant numbers of Syrians and Iraqis, without whom their impressive territorial advances would not have been possible. How much of their success in mobilization results from fear of terrorism and how much results from religious or ideological appeal in Iraq and Syria is far from clear, given that no polling organizations operate in territory held by ISIS, and the cities from which ISIS has been driven—such as Tikrit and Ramadi—were depopulated during the liberation process. The num- ber of foreigners who have flocked to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS, however, indicates that the messages and accomplishments of ISIS have a strong positive appeal with some Muslims. During the past year, ISIS has carried out terrorist attacks in close to twenty countries, in much of the Middle East and North Africa, and as far afield as Canada and Australia, demonstrating a global reach without a parallel in the history of terrorist organizations. Some of those strikes have been aimed at intimidating or overthrowing governments, which is typi- cally how terrorist attacks are conceived. Others, such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks, appear intended mainly to portray the movement as a defender of Islam. Another highly unusual feature of ISIS is its ability Hoover Institution Archives Poster Collection, 2002c71_001 Background Essay Issue 29 | February 2016 3 to inspire individuals to acts of terrorism in distant countries without any direct contact with those individuals, as for instance in the recent San Bernardino shooting spree. When enemies of a government occupy large amounts of territory that the govern- ment purports to govern, the rebels often claim statehood. Those claims gain in force when the rebels are capable of governing the population themselves, a task that rebels often find a much more daunting challenge than fighting. ISIS purports to be not just a state, but a caliphate, and its claims are given some credibility by ISIS control and gover- nance of cities like Raqqa and Mosul and other populous territory. Organizations that often employed terrorism in gaining power discontinued its use once they obtained power. But such is not always the case. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Communist China made lavish use of terrorist violence against their own citizens and millions of foreigners. The Khmer Rouge killed more than one million of Cam- bodia’s people in pursuing their vision of a Communist utopia. Iran’s revolutionaries have carried out terrorist operations on a smaller scale, using proxy forces in order to conceal their hand. The fanaticism and barbarism of ISIS give every reason to believe that terror- ism would continue if ISIS were to gain control over Syria or Iraq. External support is usually a critical factor in the ability of an insurgency to with- stand attack. Most insurgencies that have succeeded have received external support, in the form of material assistance, manpower, expertise, and/or sanctuary. Most insurgen- cies lacking in such external support have failed. ISIS appears to be receiving extensive support from Sunni countries, who may not care for ISIS’s ideology but view them as a preferable alternative to Iran and its allies in Syria and Iraq. The extent of fanaticism within an organization and its followers is also a major factor in its vulnerability. Germany’s Nazi Party had millions of devoted adherents who main- tained fierce resistance to Allied attacks until their army had been completely destroyed and their capital burned to the ground. By contrast, Afghanistan’s Taliban contained a small core of dedicated leaders, but many of its military commanders were opportunists who were willing to abandon the Taliban in 2001 when the Northern Alliance attacked the Taliban with the help of US air power. The incidence of fanatical devotees and opportun- ists within the ranks of ISIS is one of the most important questions on ISIS for which solid evidence is scarce. In contrast to most insurgent organizations, ISIS is dispersed across a multiplicity of countries. ISIS affiliates have established themselves across a wide arc of territory that includes most of the countries from Algeria in the west to Pakistan in the east, as well as Nigeria and Somalia. Although they have suffered some recent military reverses in Iraq and Syria, they appear to retain a high degree of strength in those countries, and no for- eign power or coalition has as yet mustered the ground forces that would be required 4 Issue 29 | February 2016 Strategika to evict them from their Syrian strongholds. The collapse of central governance in Libya and Yemen and the deterioration of Afghanistan’s security apparatus following American troop withdrawals have afforded opportunities for ISIS to fill governance voids. Vanquish- ing them will therefore require efforts in multiple nations, some of which are lacking in viable local partners. Destroying the leadership of an organization may suffice to destroy its ideology. The destruction of Nazi Germany put an end to its ideological appeal.